Junction 42 is an established charity which exists to see the lives of offenders and their communities visibly transformed by the hope of the Gospel through faith in Jesus Christ. Their mission statement is taken from the Old Testament book Isaiah Chapter 42 verse 7 “to free captives form prison and to release from the dungeon those who sit in darkness”.

It began in 2012 through their director Joanne O’Connor who had started the work in HMP/YOI Low Newton doing both chaplaincy and education provision, working initially for Youth for Christ back in 2000. As the Entrepreneurial work grew and prison work became more adult focused, Junction 42 was born.

I’ve known Joanne and her husband John for almost 20 years. When John, who had been a drug addict, met Joanne and they planned to get married, my wife Susan and I did their marriage preparation. Since then we have remained close friends and have closely followed and supported their prison work. In the past couple of years Susan and I have delivered workshops teaching portraiture in Low Newton prison to the young women there.

Junction 42 also delivers art and music related projects and Entrepreneurial Training courses in prisons to equip individuals in custody to take ownership of their employment situation upon release. This can be through setting up their own business using the skills learned in this course or by using the confidence gained form doing the course to make them better candidates in job applications. You can read a report on their Entrepreneurial work delivered in prisons.

The DWP refers offenders to Junction 42 to receive 1-2-1 Mentoring and/or attendance to their CAP Job Club to help them develop an action plan to rebuild their lives and to engage in the community in a positive way to dramatically reduce the likelihood of re-offending.

Another point of help for the ex offenders is Connect, a Christian group who meet at St Luke’s Church on Claremont Road in Newcastle on a Tuesday night. This provides an opportunity for them to find out about Christianity through Alpha Courses and friendship with christians.

As a means of raising support and awareness of Junction 42 I’m going to do a zip wire challenge from the Tyne Bridge on Sunday 15th April at 1pm. Two years ago a team of staff from Junction 42 did a zip wire from the Tyne Bridge and raised £5,000 between them.

If you would like to find out more about Junction 42 then Susan and I would love to see you at our Spring Exhibition at our Studio & Gallery in Ponteland which runs throughout April.

You can make a donation via MyDonate which will be very much appreciated.

Magnetic Bookmarks are not wildly available even though they are very practical. How many of us use bookmarks made from bus tickets, business cards or scraps of paper which easily fall out. Magnetic Bookmarks are much more practical as they clip onto the page you are up to without there being any danger of slipping out.

I’ve decided to do my own range of Magnetic Bookmarks which are now available in selected outlets in Newcastle upon Tyne and online at www.alanreed.com A range of seven classic scenes of Newcastle taken from my original watercolours.

More countries and places are being added to the range including Italy and Oman.

Each magnetic bookmark is museum quality, printed in full colour on the front and reverse and comes individually wrapped. The folded size is 105 mm x 45 mm.

Paintings of the Tyne Bridge have always been on demand and I’m always on the lookout for a different angle. This particular view titled Quayside, Morning Mist was inspired from seeing the Tyne Bridge one morning after a business breakfast meeting at the Slug & Lettuce. The morning had started off dull, dim, dark and damp but by the time I had left the meeting, the sun had begun to filter through the early morning mist, it’s rays bursting through the iconic structure of the magnificant Tyne Bridge.

The light was changing rapidly so there was no way I was going to be able to paint on location. I took a number of photographs and along with previous sketches made on Newcastle’s Quayside, I was able to do this A4 studio watercolour on hand made deckled edged paper. I deliberately kept my palatte simple to create extra mood and atmosphere with just a tiny dot of red for the traffic light on the left.

The painting has been reproduced as a limited edition print and has proved to be very popular, available both online and from my Studio & Gallery in Ponteland.

Paintings of the Tyne Bridges have always been very popular. Rarely does a week go by without me selling a limited edition print depicting a view of Newcastle’s Quayside showing one or more of its famous bridges. The Quayside itself has some stunning architecture, so it’s not difficult to find some inspirational aspect to paint. Also, it’s an area which has seen massive changes, particularly over the last twenty years, so even the paintings I have done over my 27 years as a full time artist have become historical.

This watercolour was sold recently from my Studio & Gallery in Ponteland and shows some of the newer additions to the River Tyne, in particular the Sage and the Gateshead Millennium Bridge. In the background you have the Tyne Bridge, High Level Bridge and indications of some of the other more distant bridges, all of which are set against the backdrop of a summer sunset. I love the interplay of curves which combine to link the old with the new which is one of the reasons why I decided to publish it as a limited edition print.

This scene of the Tyne Bridge, Early Morning, is one of my best selling prints of Newcastle. It’s a view that cannot be repeated today as it was taken from Gateshead’s multi-storey car park which was demolished in 2010. The car park starred in one of Britain’s greatest cult gangster films Get Carter starring Michael Caine. The car park’s cinema fame was sealed when Carter threw Cliff Brumby, played by Bryan Mosley, from the top in a gruesome scene. It’s architect, Owen Luder attended it’s demolition and said in an interview that the car park should be kept and the shops below revamped. It’s demise is to make way for a retail and student village. I wonder if that will make it into the movies?

I recall going to the car park’s roof top in the autumn of 1992 where I did some sketchbook studies of the early morning light breaking over the Newcastle skyline. With the aid of some of the photographs I took on that day, I was able to produce what has become something of an iconic view of the finest bridge in the North of England.